


the year in which i loved you

by neanito



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angsty as hell btw, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I literally forgot pining jeez, I said that already lol but okay, Love me some Iwa-chan, M/M, POV Oikawa Tooru, Pining, This is really cringe, can you tell this was to get my writer's block out, how could i forget pining, i'm american and it shows, it's only pining, sorry - Freeform, that was my bad, the title is ominous but i promise it is NOT a sad ending, well not only but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28500588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neanito/pseuds/neanito
Summary: "But for now, I pretend, with a painted mask of my own, that your smile doesn’t kill me yet fill me with life simultaneously. Because we are, in fact, currently standing outside of the club room and it would be weird (though I would enjoy it so) to stand and stare at one another for a million years. So I am the first to look away."OrOikawa Tooru pines for a year. Shit happens.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	the year in which i loved you

**Author's Note:**

> music inspiration for this fic:
> 
> Bloom - The Paper Kites  
> slumber - Lewis Watson ft. Lucy Rose  
> Three Small Words - Joolie
> 
> \---
> 
> predicting like 1-3 reads max on this one so...
> 
> hello if you're here!!
> 
> this is my first! fan fic! ever! so prepare for cringe lmao :D
> 
> also pls ignore the way my writing style changes as the story goes on, this was my side piece to mostly get rid of my writer's block for a bit (but i might as well make it a cute lil iwaoi story along the way though, right?)
> 
> enough of my excuses tho. hope u enjoy!

  
  
i. january

We started the year together, the same we had the past fourteen (almost fifteen) years of my life.

January begins with us at a party, some random thing I dragged you to out of a blur of dumb excitement and intoxication. I wish I didn’t. I wish we weren’t at one of our classmate’s houses at 11:32 pm, with the thirty or forty other kids our age screaming obscenities in the same drunken madness we’re in. I wish we stayed the way we did for the past fourteen years, with you and me and our families and no one else.

Because then I could show you how much I love you, without the annoying background shouting and the pop music that I admittedly can’t stop dancing to because of whatever was in the cup I just finished four minutes ago.

I only realize how much I miss the past fourteen years when you grab my hand and lead me out of the party, onto the random balcony that I swear someone was just puking over a little earlier. The fresh air feels nice, though. It cools my sweaty skin and I say something along the line of “phew, it was really hot back there” but I really can’t remember because all I can think about is you, your hand, your face, you.

You release my hand. I frown. I wish you had held it a little longer.

But then the disappointment is gone when I see you open your mouth with a blush on your cheeks that I tell myself is because you’re with me and not because of the time I walked into the kitchen and you were chugging some dark bottle with the same vigor as the other couple of boys that challenged you to that drinking game.

You say “Hey,” and gaze from the balcony that overlooks the rest of the city at a height that I can only describe as breathtaking. We can see the flashing of the firecrackers from the neighborhoods below, and all I can think is how the snapping of the playthings are probably being drowned out by the thumping of my heartbeat.

I ask you why you took me from my dancing. You cough and ask if I want to go back. I shake my head no, and smile. “So why am I here?”

“It’s a tradition, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“You and me, on New Years. I was excited for this party, but honestly I kinda… um…” I laugh at your awkwardness. You call me a dumbass.

“You what?”

This time I know that you’re blushing because of me, and nothing makes me happier. “I missed it being just us.”

And those words you say at 11:57 pm leave me speechless until 11:58.

“A-and of course, our, um parents and... stuff,” you finally say with an air of uncomfortableness that I can only find endearing.

“Of course, our parents and stuff,” I tease back, because that’s all I can do. You call me shitty. I laugh again.

“But…”

“But?”

And you smile. A real smile, that I so rarely see, only on certain days like when we win a big game or on this day, for the past fourteen (almost fifteen) years of my life.

“I like this too.”

Suddenly there’s a countdown from ten, and there’s a chorus of voices behind us that are cheering and shouting at the top of their lungs but I can’t hear them because it’s just you and me; you, me, this balcony, and the infinite amount of time we have in front of us because I can’t imagine never spending a New Year’s without you for the rest of my life.

But I can’t tell this to you, at least not now since we’ll have forever, so I simply smile back and wait.

It’s 12:00 am on January first, in the fifteenth year in which I have loved you, when I tell you the only thing that I’m able to say.

“Happy New Year, Iwa-chan.”

“Happy New Year, Oikawa.”

  
  
ii. february

  
  


February brought Valentine’s Day, and I couldn’t care less about the commercial thing. I couldn’t care less about the candies I find in my locker, on my desk, in the hands of the half dozen people that have the courage to come up to me and wish me a _“Happy Valentine’s Day, Oikawa-kun!”_

I couldn’t care less because here you are in front of me, with two other friends and the dumbest expression on your face that kinda makes me want to get out of my seat and kiss it until you look even dumber.

But I don’t. Instead I ask what’s wrong with your face because you look constipated and you grab the collar of my shirt and call me a dumbass.

Then you release me, and your dumb face goes to something that I can’t even understand, all I know is that I don’t know if I want to see it again.

“So you got all of those today?” and you point to the pile of chocolates on my desk that I was planning on sorting through and giving you the ones I didn’t like.

And I say “Yeah. Why, you jealous?” in the way where I mean you’re jealous that I got more chocolates than you did, but apparently it’s not something that you think is funny because the unreadable expression that I hate so much turns into a dark scowl that I hate more.

But you wear it so often around me, so I’ve had to get used to it.

“I’m not jealous,” you say, and cross your arms. Our two other friends behind you look at each other with a look, and turn back to me with twin smirks, because we know this routine. This routine happens every year; it happened last Valentine’s Day with them and the past ten with just the two of us.

It’s a routine where I try to grab the closest thing I can to affection, where I take the obvious jealousy of me that you exude and turn it into jealousy of others; where you tell people to “back the fuck up” because I’m yours and have been yours for the past fifteen years of my life.

But it’s a routine that never goes the way I want, so instead I give up for the day and say “Okay, alright,” and toss a pre-sorted handful of candies at you in hopes that we can move on from my failed attempt.

And I think that the rest of the day will go exactly like how it has been for the past fifteen years; how we walk home and you carry my bag of candies while obviously sneaking them into your pocket, even though I’m going to give them to you when we get to my house.

Except it doesn’t. Because we’re walking home, and even though you’re sneaking the candies into your pocket, you suddenly stop walking and I turn to you only to find a sort of embarrassment across your cheeks that makes me almost feel the exact same way just out of pity.

So I call out to you, and wonder what we’re doing standing two blocks away from our actual neighborhood in silence, with you looking at me with eyes that make my stomach do somersaults.

You clear your throat. You reach into your bag. You pull out a box.

“This is just… whatever. For you, Shittykawa.”

And suddenly I have a teal box in my hands, with a white ribbon on the top and nothing else, and it’s the weirdest Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever received; not because it’s a weird gift but because it’s from _you,_ which also makes it the best Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever received.

I open the box. You look away. I gasp.

In my hands is the prettiest charm I’ve ever seen in my life; not because it’s pretty but because it’s _from you_ , which makes it the prettiest charm I’ve ever seen. This cute, silver volleyball charm that I know you thought of me when you saw it because right here are my initials and right here are the colors of our team.

“Iwa-chan, why…?” is all I can say, all I can ask, as I take the charm out of the box and immediately clip it onto my bag.

I see you rub the back of your neck. It kills me, but you don’t know that.

“D-don’t think much of it, blockhead. I just saw it, and it already had your initials, so I thought…” you must realize how much this means to me because suddenly your eyes are as wide as saucers. “I really didn’t put too much thought into it, and your birthday was too long of a wait… Hey, seriously, stop crying!”

You grab my face with a sort of furrow in your brow, clearly an attempt to act like the tough guy you think you are, but I know better because of the gentle way your fingers graze over my cheeks to stop the flow of tears. I know better because I say thank you in the stupid breathy voice I can’t seem to get a hold of, and you laugh and smile along and call me a dumbass as you take a step back.

And for a moment, standing two blocks away from our neighborhood in silence, I pretend that this will be forever.

  
  
  


iii. march

  
  


March starts with the ending of school. I’m amazed how it’s the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end. I tell you this thought.

You call me a dumbass. But you smile, too.

But the beginnings and endings I talk about make me think about our last year of high school; in essence our last year of childhood. It hits me when we walk home as second years for the last time, as you drop me off at my front door and then tell me that you can’t stay over this time because you’re having a second year graduation dinner with your family.

It hits me when you ask if I want to come and join (now that you think about it) and I’m about to say yes but then I hear quite possibly the loudest _bang!_ ever come from the kitchen, and that answers your question because it means that my sister is trying to cook for the first time in a while.

It hits me when you laugh at the sound, and at my pure fear, which isn’t that unreasonable, and bring your hand up into a fist.

“Well, congrats again.” I tap my fist against yours.

“Yeah, you too, Iwa-chan.”

And I’m about to walk into my house with a sort of dejection from both the inevitability of the terrible meal and the hopeless feeling in my chest when you call out for me to turn around.

“See you tomorrow?”

I smile. “See you tomorrow."

It hits me that we aren’t forever. That the forever I planned with you, the one I assumed I’d have with you was one that was never guaranteed. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and not because my sister is an awful chef. 

Maybe we aren’t forever. But at least I have you for now, and that’s more than enough.

  
  
iv. april

  
  


April begins with a beginning, and this time I feel much better because there are no endings to think about. April surrounds me with business and chaos, and I feel a sort of excitement bubbling deep within me that is really hard to contain. Because it's my last year in high school. Because of volleyball. Because this is the last year we can go to Nationals and we definitely will this year. Because my sister’s son has turned ten and is starting to seriously get into volleyball as well.

Because of you.

You greet me at the front of the club room with a bag in one hand and a key in the other. I take the sight in with the desire to scream or punch or cry or kiss you because here you are, here you’ve always been. I hate myself for it. It’s not different from the last three years this has happened, except it’s entirely different because this time I know that I want you and I don’t know if you want me back.

It’s different because this year I’m the captain of the team, and you’re my vice. It’s different because I walk up to you, and you toss me the key with a dignified smirk that says, “Yeah you’re late, captain, but I am proud that you are the captain in the first place.”

I know this is what it says. I know this because I know you, and that’s all I’ve ever seemed to know for the past fifteen years of my life.

Also, you say it out loud.

“You’re late, Shittykawa.”

“Oh, please. You were just waiting in anticipation for me.” God I wish you were.

“Yeah, whatever.” A smile. Your smile.

And for the first time today, the chaos around me comes to a sudden halt, because here you are, smiling, and it’s like I’ve fallen in love with you and I do; I fall in love with you every time I see that smile. It would take me a million years for me to get over that smile, and it pains me that you don’t know that. That you’re not allowed to know that.

But for now, I pretend, with a painted mask of my own, that your smile doesn’t kill me yet fill me with life simultaneously. Because we are, in fact, currently standing outside of the club room and it would be weird (though I would enjoy it so) to stand and stare at one another for a million years. So I am the first to look away.

I open the door for the first time as captain, and you as my vice. You ask me if I’m ready. I tell you I’ve never been more ready in my life.

It’s the second biggest lie I’ve ever told you.

  
v. may

  
  


May brings contempt. May is supposed to be a season of new birth, new love; did you know that? Instead there is contempt and it is my fault. Although, I had recently come to learn that it is always my fault.

It is my fault when I slam the door to my room into your face, not bothering to care that you followed me all the way to my house (I care so so so much) to make sure that I got home properly and also to yell at me.

“I told you to stop!” 

_ You snatch the ball out of my hand as I am about to serve and snap at me for working myself too hard. _

“And yet there you were, an hour later, writhing on the ground like an idiot.”

_ I tenderly hold my knee, looking up at the looming figure, distorted by the bleariness of my tears. The figure, your figure, reaches down, the worried crease of your brow coming into focus as wet heat streaks down my cheeks. _

“Why didn’t you stop, you dumbass?”

_ “I have to be better.” _

“You can’t keep hurting yourself like this!”

_ “If I want to beat him, I have to be better.” _

“GO AWAY!”

It is my fault when you open the door at those words in a sudden fury, and I yell at you to leave so I can be alone. It is my fault when I try to stop you from walking in so I take a step forward on the wrong leg and crash to the floor, screaming in both pain and surprise. It is my fault when you yell my name and lunge forward to help me, panic striking your face that strikes my heart as well.

It is my fault that I can’t seem to catch my breath, because here you are holding me upright in one arm and tending to my knee with another, a look on your face that I would tease if I wasn’t drowning in burning waves of pain and shock.

It is my fault that I can feel your hands trembling against my neck, that I can see the quiver in your lips as you call desperately for my mother in a voice so frightened it seeps into my chest as well. And mingling with the frantic sound of my mother thundering up the stairs are your panicked whispers of expletives and shaky breaths and I realize that maybe this injury means more to you than just a teammate’s fallen luck, but someone you care for deeply with a certain kind of (what can I call it?) that I never noticed in the past fifteen years.

It is my fault that I smile at this thought, and pass it off with a little quip about how you’re actually such a softie and a well-placed reassuring chuckle during the car ride to the hospital. You tell me to shut up, and call me a dumbass. My mother laughs, wondering aloud how someone so caring and nice as you can be my friend (it’s a miracle, Hajime-kun, really, that you can stand Tooru for this long). Because even though you say those cruel words, my injured leg is still gently resting on your lap in the backseat of our car.

It is my fault that you sigh with what seems to be relief, and I know we’re going to be okay because here we are in the backseat of my mother’s car, my leg on your lap, your hand not-so-carelessly trailing up and down my calf, driving at top speed to the hospital because you knew that I was hurting myself. You knew that I needed to be okay. You wanted me to be okay.

So it is my fault that it makes me love you even more.

  
  
vi. june

  
  


June brings those three words that have been haunting your presence in my mind out loud from my mouth. I wish you understood how true they were.

Something I have recognized in the past half a year of loving you is that those words don’t seem to take themselves seriously when they are said out loud. They intertwine with other sentences, overlap with clauses, dance between the lines and lines and lines I speak on a daily basis, yet never truly mean what I want them to mean.

I want them to. I want them to mean what I want them to mean, and then say them to you.

And maybe, just maybe, you can say them back.

I notice the lack of sincerity in my words after we lose, once again, in the final of our second to last tournament. It stings, like always, but your presence seems to work as something like an ointment to the wounds the loss opens.

It happens when I walk down the hallway to wash my face and my pride down the sink of the gymnasium’s washroom. The one we hate, the one everyone seems to hate but us in particular, calls out to me, and I turn, half expecting the words that will come out of his mouth. They always seem to escape him, I notice.

And so he speaks those words, the ones that entangle how much of a wasted potential I am, and how if it were him instead of you by my side, that potential would be coaxed like a stick to a flame. What he doesn’t know is how wrong he is, that the flame is already there and it’s something entirely different from what he thinks it is.

That it’s in my heart, and that it ignites when I hear your voice from behind me.

“Sorry, but I think I speak for everyone when I tell you he’s not interested,” you say, and I can’t help but smile at the confusion you draw in the other boy’s brow. “We may have lost to you this time, Ushiwaka, but just know that we’re going to come back one hundred- no, one thousand times better than before.” 

You point to me with your thumb in that brutish way I always tease you about and you always yell at me for teasing. “Because with this guy, we can be unstoppable.”

_ I love you. _

“And I’m also not gonna pretend like this routine isn’t getting a little old. We get it, you know, _‘Oikawa should’ve gone to Shiratorizawa.’_ But look at where we are. Look at the jacket this guy is wearing. A little different from yours, I’d say.” You chuckle.

_ I love you. _

“So, yeah, thanks but no thanks. See you around.” You grab my wrist and whirl me around, pulling me alongside you with a lingering scowl etched onto your lips.

_ I love you. _

“Oh, and get ready for a major ass-whooping next time!” you call over your shoulder, not bothering to look the guy in the eye. You smirk, marching down the hallway with a sort of prideful look that screams at me to collapse right here, right now.

_ I love you. _

“What a fucking jackass,” you mutter under your breath, and I notice that you don’t release my wrist.

“I love you.”

Words are slippery, I learn. Because those three words just somehow rolled right off my tongue and I wasn’t even given a warning.

Your eyes go wide as you turn to me. Suddenly you remember that you’re holding my wrist and let go and I can feel the disappointment seep into my skin through cold chills that cover my body.

You pause, and for a second I think ‘this is it, isn’t it?’ until you finally roll those startled eyes into an exasperated expression and continue down the hallway with your once-occupied hands stuffed into the pockets of your track jacket.

“Dumbass, don’t say stuff like that.” And then in that gruff voice you always use when you’re embarrassed, you tell me to hurry up because the bus is waiting and you don’t want to wait for my spoiled ass to take my time to my throne.

I pretend like I didn’t just die on the inside. From relief or from shock, I’m not too sure. All I know is that I love you, and that I almost (I did) reveal the truth to you and that you (almost) took those words as seriously as I spoke them.

And if I weren’t so desperately in love with you, and if the kindled flames that you coax every time you talk to me weren’t so big and overwhelming, I would have noticed the pink tint that hued the tips of your ears.

But I didn’t notice, because somehow you start fires within me that are large enough to burn a hole through half of the world. And so we head home, the bus dark with the dampened mood of the team and the setting of the sun.

Our loss is like a pressed bruise to my stomach. But the lingering burning that you cause is so much worse.

  
  
  


vii. july

  
  


July brought summer. And in the quiet of summer, a blank screen waiting to whir to life, comes the thoughts to fill the blank page with bouts of color. The colors swirl together, the dark brown of your hair, the tan of your skin, the green, blue, grey of your eyes. They mix together, painting portraits of you in every corner of the screen in my mind. You’re not even next to me, but somehow you’re there.

Is it possible to be this in love?

July is the peak of our summer break. I vaguely wonder if this is our final summer break together. If all of my prayers I’ve made for our infinite forever are answered, then we’re not even close to the beginning. Of course, you don’t know that. And it hurts that neither do I.

My memory of our summers together are ones that bring the taste of ice cream onto my tongue, of sweat and summer breeze and the cold splash of the river dancing across my arms. The images explode of you, of your eyes in the light of the fireflies, of your darkened bare chest laying upon my living room floor as we try to escape the sweltering heat.

Of your laugh, one that I save in my head in the same respect as my favorite song, as we sit side by side during a break of the team’s summer training camp. The gravelly crackle of your chuckle warming me like the low bass of music notes as one of our teammates recalls some story about cats and birds or something.

Of your smile, the one I pretend you’ve reserved for me, the one I’ve only seen a handful of times but nevertheless know like it’s the back of my hand. The one where your eyes crinkle slightly at the corners and it’s sort of lopsided, the one I saw on New Years, on Valentine’s Day, on the day we beat Karasuno and you came up to me amazed that I knew how the game would end.

My memory of summer, I discover, is the memory of you.

\--

“What are you thinking about?” It’s dark, only the glow of the stars and the moon above us to illuminate the curve of your nose, your eyelashes. We’re lying side by side on twin sleeping bags; the school-issued ones we were given for our outdoor training camp sleepover. We’re somewhere in the middle of trees, surrounded by the sounds of the cicadas and the occasional sleep-ridden sigh of our teammates. I turn my head up to the stars, some of which definitely have some sort of life form on one of its nearby planets. I think about that to distract myself from what's actually occupying my head.

“Guess.”

“Wha- no, just tell me, Trashkawa.” I giggle at the sound of your grumbling.

“Fine, fine.” I raise a hand to the stars, try to catch them in my fist. “How many planets do you think are revolving around that star?”

“Ehhh? Why does it matter?” In the corner of my eye, you turn your head to me.

“Just give me an answer, Iwa-chan. How many?”

“I don’t even know which one you’re talking about, idiot.” Your head returns back to the stars.

“Shhh, not so loud. That one, over there.” I point to the middle of Orion’s belt.

“Oi, dumbass, be more specific.”

“The second one in that line of three.”

“Ehh… oh, I see it. I dunno, maybe like,” you click your tongue in thought and I try not to squeal, “five?”

“Oh.”

“Don’t ‘oh’ me, you little shit. That was a good guess.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I smile up at the stars. “Well, I think there’s none at all.”

“Huh??” I shush you again.

“I think the whole sky is just one big painting of the past. At least, the night sky is.” I raise my arms, combing my fingers through the twinkling dots on the black canvas. “What we see now is something that’s already happened. It’s like history in the present. Every time the sun comes down, someone pulls a dark curtain over the real sky and shows us an image of the universe millions of years ago. In reality, all these stars are actually burned out.”

“So what you’re saying is that there aren’t any stars at all, because they’re all dead.”

I laugh. “No, silly. We’re looking at them right now, aren’t we? This moment we’re in right now is a moment that exists where dead stars are alive for us. We’re living and have lived at different points in time, but somehow we exist together. It’s incredible, isn’t it?”

“This is hurting my head…”

“Ah, that’s because that little monkey brain of yours has a hard time keeping up with such complex topics.” I squeak at the sudden pain inflicted against my shoulder. You shush me. I turn back to the stars, looking over them with the fondness of this moment.

“It’s like they live in their own little forever,” I murmur. “That’s something I want.” And I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the quiet little hum you emit from the back of your throat tells me that I must have.

“Well, nothing’s stopping you.” The words sound heavy and awkward on your tongue, and the weight of them drop the meaning so I don’t quite understand what you’re saying.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, obviously you can’t live forever, or whatever,” you say, and I laugh at the punch you give my arm as I tease you for your accidental rhyme. “But, like, if you just stay in one moment and don’t think about the future and stuff, then it feels like time gets slower, right?” I blink at the sudden wave of wisdom in your thoughts. When it makes sense to me, all of a sudden I can only think about the forever I’ve wished for all this time, and this moment now, and that the two are so close yet so far apart, and to connect them all I need to do is just say something.

And it must be the stars that have already lived the life we’re living now, because the wave of confidence that moves my lips overtakes me before I can even realize what’s happening.

“Then can this be forever?”

Cicadas and the sound of sleep fill the silence you leave. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped breathing until I hear you open your mouth.

“Like right now?”

“Y-yeah. Can we just… live in this moment forever?” I exhale the words.

I hear you sigh, and it’s a foreign song I’ve never heard from you before. “Okay.” Your head turns to me once more, and I find your eyes in the darkness. It’s an easy task, seeing as they seem to be brighter than any of the stars in the sky above us.

A smile. Your smile.

And a little of mine, too.

“Then… let’s live forever, tonight.”

  
  
  


viii. august

  
  
  


August brings change. I’m not quite sure if it is a change you notice, although you should, because it is a change caused by you.

You change. And I don’t know what to do.

It starts with the books.

They emerge like the hidden thorns that used to tuck themselves into the soles of our feet in barefoot summers of our childhood. Everywhere, all over.

Painful.

You start bringing books to school. Books to practice, opened and abused in the locker room between changing and showering. Books at my house, when I invite you over to study (watch movies) and instead of giving me the attention I so desperately crave from you, it is spent on the tiny print of ink on those dreaded pages.

So I ask you about them. And then I learn something new about three words. They can be everything I want them to be (“I love you,” as the tale goes).

But they also can hurt. More than the books and the thorns, too.

“They’re for college.”

I blink in surprise. You turn a page.

And here we are, somehow managing to be sitting right next to each other on the comforter of my bed, yet still a million miles away.

Because you thinking about college means you thinking about the future. It means me having not thought about the future, because I wanted to prolong the forever I thought we had established. It means here we are, motionless on my stupid comforter, yet moving in completely different directions.

Of course, you don’t know this. So instead I inquire further to know more about your future.

“What’re they about?”

“They’re different types of medical journals. Like human physiology, sports science. That stuff.”

I blink again. You turn another page.

And this is where I know things are different. Somehow, in the past fifteen years of knowing you, I apparently had not known you at all. Not because you’re studying sports science, or human physiology. Not even if you were studying astrophysics or mechanical engineering.

But because you think of a future I am not in. Because you know that I do not want to do sports medicine or mechanical engineering and that it’s been volleyball and will always be volleyball for me.

I just thought it would be volleyball for me _with you_.

“You’re not going to continue volleyball?” I ask.

I know the answer. I know the answer so well that it hurts. I know the answer like I know the back of the hand. I know the answer more than I know you.

“Well, if I’m being honest, I’ve never thought of playing volleyball past high school,” you say.

I blink once more. The book finally closes.

Then it’s just us in a sort of silence that kind of suffocates me, until I realize that I’ve forgotten to breathe because this is the moment after the forever, isn’t it? The moment we live in right now is no longer what I’ve planned to stay in with you, but some bullshit place in time where everything changes.

I hate it. I can’t hate you for it, because I love you, but I feel something that is pretty close to the sentiment.

“So what have you thought about?” The words taste salty. I can’t look at you, nor can I imagine the look in your eyes that bore into the side of my temple. I simply wait instead.

“I don’t know. I guess just going to college is about as far as I’ve gotten,” you say in a casual tone that stabs like a dagger to the chest. “Oh, and I guess a possible major,” and you lift the book in your hand as if the act isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.

“I see.” I lie. I’ve actually been blindsided.

“Although, I’ve been thinking of places to go.”

“Oh? Like where?”

“Tokyo, for starters.” The dagger twists.

“T-Tokyo?”

“Well, yeah, that’s where basically all the colleges in Japan are,” and a lighthearted laugh escapes your lips. I curl further into myself.

“Oh.”

“But,” and you pause. Finally, _finally,_ I look up at you only to find an expression that makes me regret even inviting you over in the first place. “I’ve been thinking about... studying abroad.”

And suddenly the dagger you’ve thrust into me isn’t a dagger at all but your entire hand instead, ripping out my heart with the brute force of your fingers.

“H-how abroad is abroad?”

“Um-- like, America?”

There was once a time I dreamt about forever, did you know that? You were in the dream. In fact, I’d go as far to say that you were my dream. You are my dream.

But now, in this moment, I wish you never were. Even though I love you. Even though I will always love you, and right now you’re making that the worst possible thing to feel about you.

“Oh.” It’s a pitiful sound that ends our conversation.

August brings a change caused by you, and your god forsaken books, and the future. It brings a change in the way I feel my love for you, too. A change where “I love you,” for the first time, isn’t what I want to feel at all.

So yes, August brings change. 

I just forgot to mention that it wasn’t a change for the better.

  
  
ix. september

  
  


September brings silence.

  
  
x. october

  
  


October brings everything, and nothing at the same time. September’s silence gave me time to think. About you, about how much I love you, about what my love means to you.

I think I need to tell you how much I love you.

Since our forever is gone, anyways.

It’s funny how time likes to repeat itself, since in the same fashion as March, October begins with an ending.

As in, we lose the final game of our high school season.

As in, the last game I will ever play with you.

I am surprised at how late the tears come. Somehow, I manage to see the aftermath of our loss through clear eyes; I see our teammates, whose gazes were once held high in pride of their love for the sport, now lowered to the floor in shame and sorrow. I see you, your lip held tightly between your teeth as tears that I want to wipe away with my thumbs stream down your cheeks. 

Instead of my thumbs, they meet the floor, splattering the last remains of regret onto the wood that reflects your figure. I can see it perfectly too, the whole gruesome thing.

All I can do is slap your back, because I am the captain and you are my vice, and if I were to kiss your pain away, we’d know longer be as such.

I laugh at the pathetic thought on the way home, and it’s somehow the most pitiful sound on our grief-stricken bus. Because what I didn’t realize was that as soon as we lost we weren’t captain and vice anymore; no label to stop me from what I wanted to do. Now it is just myself and my fears.

\---

I am surprised at how late the tears come, and how late they stay once they arrive. 

You are the only one to see this, because you are the only one I would let see this side of me. It’s because I love you, but you don’t know that. What you know is that it has always been this way for the past fifteen years of my life, so there wouldn’t be anything to change.

And so we dance our routine.

It begins with you staying over the night; I didn’t even need to tell you I couldn’t bear to be alone. It continues with you and me, laying side by side in bed, my head to your chest, your hand to my hair. The quiet tears that fill the spaces between us stain the front of your shirt.

“We were so close,” I say, and I fail trying not to let my shaking body shake my words as well.

You do not have a response. I wouldn’t have one, either. So I continue.

“That was our final game together. We didn’t even get to rematch him.” I do not need to name the details; you already know exactly what I am talking about, as you always do.

I once came to learn that everything is my fault. Now that I know this, the thought seeps into my every indignant word, my every failed action. It’s a mechanism I’ve resorted to, since I have no one in my life I could otherwise blame, and I’d much rather die than blame you for it all.

So I say, “If I was just a little better,” because I know it is true deep down, that I was tasked as a captain and as a teammate to bring everyone up to their fullest potential, and that my failure cost us this sorrowful moment, right here.

“Stop.” The word silences me, makes me choke back the sob that threatened to emerge just seconds before. You take it as a sign to continue.

“I’ll let you be sad, just for tonight. But I am not going to let you blame yourself.” The words envelope me, and I notice your hold around my head and waist grow a little tighter.

“You are the best goddamn volleyball player I know,” you say in that low, quiet voice you use when you want to be serious about something. It resonates through me, and I tell myself it is the soul force that drives my heartbeat.

“And I know for a fact that what you gave today was more than one hundred percent.”

“But, I still lost it--”

“Yeah! You lost it for us!” The low tone escalates to a growl. “And I lost it for us as well! And so did Hanamaki, and Matsukawa, and Kunimi, and Watari, and Kindaichi, and fucking Kyoutani and Yahaba and everyone else on our team!” 

I hide my shock into the base of your neck.

“Don’t you get it? We all lost together, not because you weren’t good enough, but because Karasuno was a good-ass team who was better than us and deserved to win! Hey, look at me.”

And you take your hands that were holding my waist and bring them to my chin, pushing back and tilting up so we are eye to eye. I see something I can’t understand swirling in them, and in the furrow of your brow, and in the way you purse your lips.

And the words that leave your mouth pull an entire storm into my chest. 

“You are the best player on our team. You are better than every single player on their team, too. You are the best volleyball player I know, Oikawa Tooru. And you always will be.”

“But I-- I won’t be the best f-forever--”

“Who cares?” The grip around my chin tightens. “Who cares about forever? What’s your weird obsession with forever, anyways?”

I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. All I can do is look at you, your eyes, your lips, you.

“You’re here with me right now as the best player I know. Fuck, as the best person I know, Tooru.”

You inhale. I bite my lip.

“I-- you’re the best person I know,” you repeat yourself, quieter. In the silence, it’s just you and me and a heartbeat, and for a second, I can’t tell whose one it is.

“Iwa-chan…”

“And forever doesn’t matter, if we only think about right now,” you continue, your voice gaining more confidence. “And that’s you and me here, okay? So don’t think about the future. Or forever. Just think about right here. Right now.”

“Right now,” I repeat.

“Right now.” The hand on my chin pulls away to wipe away the tracks of tears, then places itself on the side of my cheek. I never look away from your eyes.

“Thank you for staying with me, Iwa-chan.”

“S-shut up, Shittykawa.” I laugh at the way your cheeks turn bright red. You pinch my cheek.

Then I hear your voice, barely a whisper. “Thank you for everything, Tooru.”

And if we were outside, I would’ve told you to look up, because there is a meteor shower above our heads, granting wishes for those who pray every time a flash of light darts across the sky.

I would tell you to make a wish, and tell me what you’ve wished for, because that’s how it usually goes.

I wouldn’t make one, though. Because you’re right in front of me, aren’t you?

And you’re everything I’ve ever wished for, aren’t you?

  
  
xi. november

November brings you.

Now no matter where I go, I see you. I see you in the charm of my gym bag, in the silver gleam of the volleyball that always catches the light in just the right way. I see you in the stars, in the middle of Orion’s belt, where five planets definitely circle the star even though it has died already. 

I see you in the book you left at my house, the one about something-or-other medicine, and I realize it was about joint injuries (specifically in the lower leg and knee) when I open it in disdain one particularly sour night.

I see you in the story I’ve carved in my mind, the one where you’re by my side forever. And I see you in the real story, the one where you tell me on that particularly sour night I mentioned earlier that you decided on some school in North America.

The truth is that I don’t want you to go. The truth is that you are everything to me, and of course I don’t want to lose my everything.

The truth is that my weird obsession with forever is mostly caused because of you. Because I want to stay with you forever. Because I don’t want things to change. Because I’m not ready to live a life without you.

Because I love you, I love you, I love you.

But you don’t know that.

\---

“What are you thinking about?”

It’s weird, I think, the way time likes to repeat itself. 

Because here we are, under the same painted sky of July, lying side by side in the middle of the trees and cicadas and the heavy silence between us.

The difference is that it is just us: just you, me, the sky, and the weight of the question.

Another difference: you’re the one who asks.

I could say “I was just thinking about how much I’m in love with you,” but that doesn’t seem quite appropriate (though it is in my mind.)

So instead I feign indifference. “What’s on my mind?”

“Yeah.”

_ Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. _

“Are you sure you want to know?” I smile when I hear you huff.

“C’mon, just tell me, Shittykawa.”

_ I’m not ready. Don’t say it. _

“Fine. I was thinking of you.”

Your eyes turn to the sky, away from mine. They don’t look at my lips as I mouth the words. _I love you._ I look up as well.

“Me? Why?”

_ Don’t. _

_ Say. _

_ It. _

“I was just thinking about the last time we were like this,” and I gesture to the painting above us. “You told me to live in the moment, and then maybe we’d live forever. So I made you promise me that.” 

A smile. Mine. Yours. Who knows.

“Ah, I think I remember that. Summer, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

_ Don’t... _

“Why’d you want that?”

“Want what?”

“Forever, that night.” I can hear your heartbeat.

I can hear your heartbeat. I can hear your heartbeat.

_... Say it._

“Probably because I was with you.”

_ I love you. _

“O-oh. What?”

_ I love you. _

“Can I tell you something please, Iwa-chan?” I turn my gaze to yours. You don’t know it, but I clench my fist so tightly that I pierce the skin. Blood slips in between the seams of my palm.

I don’t feel it. Your stare is too strong. And I’m staring right back, since it feels like the only way not to melt under the heat of your eyes.

_ I love you. _

“Uh, sure.”

_ I love you. I love you. I love you. _

“I--”

_ Love you. Say it. _

“I--”

_ Can’t. _

And the space where the words should be is empty, sitting lamely right between my lips. I can’t. I can’t tell you.

_ I can’t tell you I love-- _

You open my eyes. You take my face in your hands. You blink, and I see the curl of your eyelashes go down, up.

And then the empty space the words left between my lips are filled by the soft touch of yours.

Your lips on mine. Your firm gaze shut tight under your eyelids. And mine as well, after the shock runs its course through my body.

Suddenly I’m no longer under the starry painting of the sky but a part of it, because the way I’m floating right now makes it impossible for me to be touching the ground.

By the time you pull away, I’m not even on Earth.

I exhale slowly. I open my eyes. I blink.

A smile. Yours. Mine.

And words are the most slippery things in the world, aren’t they?

“I love you, Iwaizumi Hajime.” My hands to your face, my kiss to your forehead.

“I’m in love with you.” My kiss to your cheek.

“I’m so so so in love with you.” My kiss to your jaw. I feel the skin move under my lips, and it feels like the entire world shifting underneath me.

“Oi, okay I get it,” you say with a light laugh. I don’t care. I don’t care. My kiss to your eyelid.

“I love you.”

“Yeah, I know, Tooru-- hey!” My kiss to the side of your neck.

“I love you.”

“Okay, okay,” and you pull my hands away from your face and slide them into your own, and I can’t help but notice the way you cradle them between your fingers is the same way you like to hold things that are really very delicate; like your mother’s expensive china and silver volleyball charms and right now, my fingers.

Our eyes meet in the night, among silence and stars and trees. Where are we, by the way? Does it matter?

“I took a really big fucking gamble with that kiss.”

I laugh, and you look at me with the entire galaxy in your eyes. Have you always looked at me that way? The way I look at you?

I want it. I want it forever.

“I’m glad you did.”

You take the gamble again, with a smile. I can feel it against my own, and it’s so beautiful.

We break away once more, my eyes closed in satisfaction. I can feel the light puff of your breath against my nose. Inhale, exhale. It reminds me that I have to breathe, too.

“Hey,” I feel your finger tap the space between my eyes. I open it up, and see the entire world in front of me.

“I love you, too.”

  
  
  


xii. december

  
  
  


We end the year the way we started it: together, the same way we had the past fifteen (almost sixteen) years of my life.

December ends quietly, with just you and me; you, me, our families, but that doesn’t matter because it’s still you and me. The way it’s always been. The way I always want it to be.

I think to myself, in the same quiet fashion, that this is our last year together. That after this, we’ll both be headed in different directions, different futures.

But the same one too, in a way. I think you know what it is.

The conversation we had about it brings a smile to my face.

  
  


_ “I’ll visit you every single day, since we’ll both be in the Americas!” _

_ “Oi, Shittykawa, do you even know how far apart California and Argentina are? It’s impossible to do that!” _

_ “Iwa-chan! It’s a romantic gesture! You’re supposed to be charmed by it!” _

_ “How am I supposed to be charmed by something so idiotic?” you grumble as you press a kiss to my temple. _

  
  


“What are you smiling about?” a soft voice lulls into my ear, lips tickling the skin. It brings shivers down to the tips of my toes.

We have a small set up in my front yard, my family and yours, of chairs around a little grill that warms the frosty night with orange-gold waves of heat.

You take your seat beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat of your arm through the thick fabric of our jackets.

We haven’t told our parents yet, but that doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned, we have all the time in the world to do so.

“Nothing,” I respond to your question. But it’s too late, you’re looking at me with curious eyes, ones that somehow manage to be warmer than the grill we’re seated in front of.

It’s funny, how your eyes are everything to me. It must be because it’s you, and that you are and have been my everything for the past fifteen years.

Soon sixteen, in three minutes.

“Nothing?”

“Well,” I say with a giggle. “I’m thinking a lot of things, but most of them are things that I can’t say in front of our parents now, Iwa-chan.”

Your cheeks turn an adorable shade of red, and the sight brings butterflies to my stomach.

“H-hey, now,” you mutter, looking away. “So what else, then?”

I think for a moment, then smile. 

“It’s tradition, isn’t it?” I say.

“What is?”

“You and me, on New Years.”

You’re quiet for a moment, and I see the realization smooth over your expression. Amusement curves the corner of your mouth.

“And our parents and stuff.” You laugh at the memory, and the butterflies in my stomach turn into hornets.

I’m pulled away from your laugh by the sound of firecrackers and laughter down the street from where we sit. I take in the loud snaps and bright light, the blood and adrenaline coursing through my body.

You don’t notice, but it makes me lean in a little closer.

“Did you know since then?” It escapes me as less than a whisper, but you catch it anyways.

“Know what?”

“That you loved me.”

“Nah.”

“Eh?!” I hit your arm and pretend it isn’t just a way to touch you.

Suddenly your fingers, light and delicate, make contact with mine, tracing the curve of my pointer and index finger. They hesitantly loop around once, and I watch as you briefly look up at our families, who are now equally distracted by the boisterous noise down the street. 

_ I love you. _

And with less hesitation you turn your attention back to your fingers as they intertwine with mine tightly. You pull them low in a hidden embrace, tucked away behind the thickness of our sleeves and the closeness of our legs.

_ I love you. _

You look back up at me, and I see the light of the firecrackers dance in a deep blue, green, brown sea. “Since before that.”

I inhale. “Before?”

A smile. Your smile. “Yeah, way before.”

_ I love you. _

“Then... since when?”

You pause for a moment, the space filled with firecrackers and laughter and now the bright explosions of color in the sky that let me know it is almost time to say goodbye to this year.

_ I love you. _

“Since forever.”

_ I love you. _

And fireworks spark bright, and firecrackers roar in the background, and our families count down to whatever year comes next. But I can’t hear or see anything because here you are, right next to me with your hand in mine and mine in yours, and nothing else matters when it’s just you, you and me and no one else.

It’s 12:00 am on January first, in the sixteenth year in which I have loved you, when I tell you the only thing I’m able to say.

“I love you, Hajime.”

“I love you too, Tooru.”

\---

So we move forward, through years where I love you, and you love me back. And because the forever we've created for ourselves encompasses only us, it doesn't matter how far apart we are.

It doesn't matter, because it's just you and me.

Together.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hope that wasn't too rough for you hehe :9
> 
> i love haikyuu very very much. also love iwaoi very very much. just makes sense, ya dig?
> 
> pls lmk if this was ass and i need to delete. i don't want to taint the beauty that is ao3
> 
> idk what else to say. if u see my user again, it might be under another haikyuu fic (maybe bokuaka or daisuga idk)
> 
> love u if u read this btw


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